Singapore passport
The Singaporean passport is a travel document issued to the citizens of Singapore. It is issued by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore. Only Singaporean citizens can apply for this passport. The passport is a popular target for counterfeiters, due to the relatively liberal visa requirements for Singaporean travellers to destinations such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and the tendency for immigration to clear Singaporean passport holders more quickly.Zaihan Mohd Yusof, Serangoon Rd man asks undercover reporter: Psst, want to buy a passport?, The New Paper, 9 Jun 2004. Accessed 11 Nov 2006. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority thus adopted several measures to foil forgers, including utilizing digital photos and special ink since October 1999, and the Biometric passport from August 2006. History Prior to 1 January 2000, parents may include their child's particulars in the Singapore passport. This practice has since been ceased. Parents who have previously included the child's particulars may apply to delete the child's particulars. Currently, the particulars of children aged 15 years or below can be included in either parent's passport. From 1 Jan 1999, these children will be required to obtain their own passport. For children already included in the parents' passports, the passports will remain valid till expiry. The inclusion of children's particulars in a parents' passport is inconvenient for both the parents and the child. A child whose particulars have been included inside the father's passport can only travel with the father, but not with the mother. Similarly, if the whole family is vacationing abroad and if the father needs to return home for some reason, he will have to bring the child back with him. The validity of the parents' passports may also be restricted to their male children's eligibility under MINDEF exit permit control guidelines. In addition, more children today are travelling on their own, for example, on overseas field trips organised by their schools. Separate passports will also speed up immigration clearance in Singapore. Immigration officers no longer need to flip up through the passport to look at the particulars and photographs of their children. Instead, all passports can be individually read quickly by the Optical Character Recognition scanners at Singapore Immigration checkpoints. Validity The Singaporean passport is valid for a period of five years for passports issued since April 1, 2005 and ten years for passports issued before 1 April 2005. Before biometric passports were issued in August 2006, passports for male citizens between 11 and 18 were only valid for two years, and had to be renewed or replaced every two years. Biometric passports cannot be modified due to the "write once" policy by ICAO. A new passport is valid for a total period of five years. For the renewal of a passport that has a validity of nine months or less, the new one will have a validity of five years plus the remaining validity in the old passport. However, if a passport is being renewed with a validity of more than nine months, it will be valid for five years and nine months. To travel overseas, a passport must be valid for at least six months. Biometric passport Since 15 August 2006, all newly issued Singaporean passports contain biometric features (BioPass). A major reason for this addition is to comply with the requirements for the US Visa Waiver Program. The features also help to prevent forgery and minimize the abuse of Singaporean passports. The biometric passports contain 64 pages, unlike the machine readable passports, which contain 96 pages. It costs S$80 for a passport, with the higher cost due to the special features encoded into the passport. There is a ten dollar rebate if one applies for the passport on the Internet, by post or by deposit box with applicants having to collect the passport personally. The biometric passport is valid for 5 years for first time applicants, compared with 10 years for previously issued passports without biometric features. Also, the new passport does not accept modifications such as extensions of validity, and updating of photographs due to ICAO's "write once" policy. In a break from long standing practice, the passport number is now unique to each passport, instead of being identical to the holder's NRIC number. The biometric passport project cost the Singaporean government a total of S$9.7 million. National Service issues All male citizens are required to be conscripted for two years as National Service (NS). Previously, the Singapore government had a policy of limiting the validity of the passport for boys aged 11 and above. Before travel, they had to apply for a 9 month extension of their passports. Such extensions were added with a rubber stamp. The Singapore government has stated that the objective of such exit control measures is to deter NS-evasion, and that these measures serve as a "psychological reminder" of the citizen's NS obligations. Since the new biometric passport does not permit such modifications, a decision was made by the Ministry of Defence to do away with limited-validity passports. Exit permits are still required for overseas trips which last longer than three months. Apply You must be a Singaporean to apply for passport. You need a passport-sized photograph, that is taken within the last 3 months. A $70 fee is applicable through application of passports. Payment is made through NETS/CashCard, VISA, MasterCard and American Express. You can apply through - *Login to our e-service - MyICA (formerly using APPLES) using your SingPass 2FA, and submit the passport application online through MyICA (Beta). *Obtain a Singapore passport application form. Either post your completed application form to ICA Building, or drop it into the deposit box in the ICA Building (during operating hours) or outside the ICA Building (after operating hours). For applications by post or deposit box, payment can be made using Cash, NETS or CashCard. A S$70 fee is payable. If your passport is lost or damaged, you will need to pay the passport fee of S$70 and the following non-refundable penalty fees for a replacement passport: *S$50 for the first replacement *S$100 for subsequent replacements. Collect You will be informed on the passport collection 1 week in advance after the application, and also the notification card will also be delivered to the email address. You can collect the passport at ICA Building: *Mondays to Fridays: 8.00am to 4.30pm *Saturdays: 8.00am to 12.30pm Cancellation of Singapore passport The Authority will cancel or refuse a passport on the grounds of: *if the person dies *if the Singapore passport is expired *if the Singapore passport has been reported loss or stolen, or damaged/defaced as to render it. The only option to apply is through the passport office (not MyICA). *if the particulars are not correct *if the Singapore passport is still valid at the time when the person applies for another passport *in the case of holder of Singapore passport, a seizable offence against any written law *authority makes a request to cancel Singapore passport *if the person is the subject of warrant to arrest in Singapore in respect against any written law *the person (including a person who is in prison) is prevented from travelling internationally by force of any law enforcement *holder ceased to be the citizen of Singapore. *if a Singapore passport or a Singapore travel document were issued to a person, the person would be likely to engage in conduct that might prejudice the security of Singapore or any other country, might endanger the health or safety of the persons. In this section, "prevented from travelling internationally" meaning: *(a) required to remain in Singapore. *(b) required to surrender a Singapore passport or a Singapore travel document; *© not permitted to apply for a Singapore passport or a Singapore travel document; or *(d) not permitted to obtain a Singapore passport or a Singapore travel document. Loss of passports The Controller may refuse to issue a Singapore passport to a person if, before the passport application under consideration is made, 2 or more Singapore passports issued to the person have been lost or stolen and for reasons of passport security and integrity, the Controller considers that it is not desirable to issue that person with another Singapore passport. Concurrently valid passports The Controller should not issue a Singapore passport to a person who has been issued with a Singapore passport and it is still valid. Children The Controller should not receive a Singapore passport except that parental responsibility is required. In this case, it refers to children under 16 years old. Visa requirements Passport validity length Most of the countries requires passports to be valid for at least 6 months upon arrival. These include Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Europe, United Kingdom and United States. Some countries requires passports to be valid for at least 9 months. References External links *Issuing of Singapore passports * Images of a 1951 Singapore passport * History of the Singapore passport From passport-collector.com Category:Passports by country Category:Foreign relations of Singapore